Possible 2nd lockdown for Leicester?

[Chrysalis]

3 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

There will be a spark somewhere to an event no doubt - that’s the whole aim of track and trace. 
 

However I can’t help feeling the shock fact of Leicester having 10% of the country’s infections is down to an increased level of testing. The stats suggest steady levels and the peak has passed - obvs you’d like to think govt and science have more up to date data. 

We part of a trial of a few areas where testing was added for a new system.

 

Its not been disclosed if this is a reason for the higher cases, it is inevitable now with testing been increased in the area we will get even more positive results, its going to create a closed feedback loop.

[CosbehFox]

4 minutes ago, Mickyblueeyes said:

This is exactly the question we should be asking. It seems very easy to blame BLM, eid, different community groups etc. But like you said, these events happened everywhere. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be a spike. I think it’s foolish to just chuck our hats on the obvious reasons here. These figures have come from the testing system outside the hospital (or at least the vast majority) so it’s got to be looked at much deeper. Sometimes it’s easier for people to blame something obvious but if we don’t look deeper, this thing will keep coming back and not just in Leicester, in the country at large. 

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/28/coronavirus-uk-are-cases-rising-or-falling-near-you
 

Some interesting patterns/graphs in here about areas of the country which are having sustained increases 

[StriderHiryu]

1 hour ago, Costock_Fox said:

It’s almost like the government have ****ed up and not acted quick enough yet again. 

Pretty much. Whilst Leicester is now making the news for all the wrong reasons, IMO this was inevitably going to happen somewhere in the country, it just so happens to be Leicester that strikes first.

 

The list of cock-ups is immense:

 

- Lockdown took too long to happen. PM himself got the virus from underestimating it.

- Muddled messaging. "If meet a few mates, I'm staying alert and controlling the virus right?" Are masks appropriate or unnecessary? Messaging has gone from "Masks can do more harm than good" to "they have super powers, wear one on public transport" in the space of 3 months.

- Failure to enforce lockdown policy

- Failure to test at airports / quarantine until recently.

- Cummings scandal meant people thought "sod it if he can break the rules, so can I." This one TBH is the one that I sympathize with. It was outrageous to let him get off the hook.

- Contact Tracing app delayed ad nauseum, still not ready. Means delays in tracking flare-ups, means having to enforce secondary lockdowns like the one announced today.

- Testing figures nowhere near the target set. No counting the same test three times or bundling out 20K home tests in a day to make up the numbers doesn't count.

- Opening things up too soon. Do people really need to visit Primark / JD Sports that urgently?

- Etc.

 

On top of this you've got the situation of how many people have behaved:

 

- "Me me me" generation of not caring about our fellow humans. Lets get pissed up in the park / play football / have an illegal rave. I've seen this first hand for months.

- Not enough done by leaders of various communities and groups to get the message across loud and clear. Brandishing your copy of [insert religious text here] isn't going to stop the Coronavirus. Wearing a mask and not being with 2 metres of 30+ people at a time might.

- Mass protests. Both of my parents are from ethnic minorities so trust me when I say I fully understand why people felt the need to protest... but I felt very uncomfortable at the time they were taking place.

- "Oh it's a nice day, guess the virus will have a day off today" attitude. Bournemouth beach busier than peak holiday season just last week comes to mind. Street Parties for VE day, etc.

- "I'll take my chances. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be" attitude. Maybe you are comfortable with that decision, but it sucks for Ethel down the road who's in her 80's and just wanted to see out the rest of her life in peace and whose immune system will not be able to deal with the virus. You can show zero symptoms and still carry and transmit the virus.

 

So along with the many failings of the government, I've got to say that the population at large also has to share a large burden of the blame here. BUT when messaging is vague people will interpret it how they want. During the first period of the lockdown the message was super clear. "Stay at home. Save Lives." The second phase messaging was deliberately vague no doubt because the government blatantly values the economy over lives, and wanted to get some of it going but in a way that blame could be put on someone else's doorstep instead of their own. It's been scientifically proven that the average person is terrible at decision making. That's why we elect leaders and why managers who get to the very top get there for a reason. Leadership and decision making is extremely difficult because the wrong decision can spell disaster. Making the average person have to make a difficult decision around a subject they don't understand is always going to create chaos, and end up with situations of people flaunting the rules, especially when we are dealing with an invisible killer.

 

Honestly the thing I find most depressing about the whole pandemic isn't the number of countless deaths that could be prevented (which is of course a tragedy), but how we now see human beings for what we really are -  selfish and entitled idiots. And now I'm part of the problem because I'm just another one of those people silently judging people instead of trying to something about it. FFS!

 

/Rant

 

 

 

 

Edited 29 June 2020 by StriderHiryu

[Chrysalis]

2 hours ago, Sampson said:

It's not. All non-essential shops closed. All non-essential travel in and out of the city stopped.

 

It's not same as it was. It's back to a stricter lockdown.

 

Our players can't leave the city. Opposition players can't come into the city. I don't see how our game against Everton goes ahead.

Dont our players live outside the city?

 

I think the issue mainly will be training and home games.

[urban fox]

1 hour ago, Paninistickers said:

Look at Hancock's statement. It's a recommendation not to travel into or out of Leicester. 

 

No legal enforcement whatsoever

yeah but at least if we get stopped we can at least say in all honesty that we have not been in Leicester for two weeks. We are responsible people and obviously if either of us had symptoms then we wouldn't go anyway but at least this way we will know we are safe, both for ourselves and anyone else we might come into contact with. can see a lot of others doing the same. The annoying thing is that i was travelling to London every week for work when it was rife down here and managed to keep myself safe by observing social distancing and carried hand sanitiser with me everywhere i went and now because of idiots who thought they knew better we are in this ridiculous situation.  It is quite telling that they are saying the oiutbreak is mainly amongst younger people, the very same that i have been seeing partying on the park over the last few days/weeks

[Chrysalis]

1 hour ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

I still maintain the cause of the outbreak is predominately due to (local?) cultural reasons. Deprivation and poverty is also blamed but there are other areas of the city which have equally low social- economic groups. Official studies in recent years show areas such as Stocking Farm, Mowmacre Hill, parts of New Parks and Braunstone also have some of the highest levels of poverty.

It seems Covid does affect black/Asian folk disproportionately more, but why three times higher in Leicester than the next highest city?

Community leaders in those areas affected, need to have some open and honest discussions in the coming days

We not three times higher, on the data I posted.

 

Kent has almost 3x the cases of Leicester yet isnt in lockdown.

 

Kent is showing a falling pattern (their initial case load was really high), but its still way higher then Leicester.

 

Other cities are at maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of Leicester.  A picture has been painted that isnt matching public data.

 

There is a lot of areas in the UK where its effectively been eradicated 0-1 cases per day.  So the active cases are in clusters in the country, when you understand this the 10% of national cases isnt as extreme as it sounds, I think the second highest city is probably in the 7-9% range not in the 3% range.

 

I checked Hull, another poor city, Birmingham, which is diverse.  They not as bad as Leicester but not massively better either.

 

Looking at the Leicester mercury data is interesting, it shows that hospital infections dropped off like the national average, they havent flared up again, although do remain high vs national average (but not dangerous high).  The figures which triggered this new lockdown appear to the newer public testing, and Leicester City is part of a trial thats only in a few places of more widespread testing.  After 16 June, even more testing units were sent to the city, which predictably rose the confirmed cases further.  So I think the Mayor does have a point, but wehether this explains all of the disparity I dont know.  Finally the cases are in certain parts of the city, really if there was going to be a local lockdown, it should have been those streets only, but I expect because of BLM protests, they didnt want to look racist so just did the entire city.  As has been said it wont be enforced so people will just drive out to go to shops etc.  Plus I expect we now even get some people looking to actually move away from Leicester now, as this sets a grim path for the future.

[TeamRocket]

To be honest I find this whole thing odd. I live in the north west (Bolton) and seen a lot of people out and about like life is normal but not seen any places where people are getting tested not sure if that's cos I have been only going out to do my 2 week shopping or what but also not read about any test centres in the news about the north west 🤔

[urban fox]

51 minutes ago, Chrysalis said:

I think he tried to force the governments hand by publically going against their will.

 

I can understand why he tried, this could destroy the city economically for decades.

 

Also the reason he said they not so bad, check here.

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/29/36-cities-counties-covid-19-cases-rising-risking-local-lockdowns/

 

There is other regions that are "not much better", look at kent which is way worse than Leicester, questions to be asked as to why we the only area, and even why there isnt a new national lockdown.

 

Schools shouldnt have been reopened either.

 

People from Germany are wondering why we locked down an entire city and not just the specific localised areas.  I think the obvious answer to that is because of BLM.

could it be anything to do with the fact that Kent is Tory heartland whereas Leicester (certainly the three city constituencies) and our mayor are Labour strongholds? Just putting it out there. Also Soulsby, who i have no great love for either, got caught breaking lockdown (so did Boris's Mate but no that was Ok as he was testing his eyesight).  The sad fact is that the govt. have been playing politics with peoples lives all along. At the beginning i actually warmed to Boris and Hancock, thought they were doing the best they could under difficult circumstances and was getting fed up of the press continually doing them down whilst they seemed to be trying to do the right thing but it has been one cock up after another and if it were not for Trump taking that accolade, we would be the laughing stock of the world.

We all know that there comes a point where we simply have to get the country working again and open up business or we will all be bankrupt but, surely these decisions should have been based on active cases, not just deaths, but without a decent track and test system it seems that these numbers were massively underestimated. We have known about this for nearly two weeks yet Govt did nothing, not even shared the detailed data with local govt. and health authorities or it could have been nipped in the bud then

[hackneyfox]

1 hour ago, UniFox21 said:

Pretty much, blame culture is too prominent. People at beaches blaming Cummings for all mass gatherings rather than taking a look at themselves. 

Plenty of us stayed at home and still blame Cummings for giving the thoughtless morons an excuse.

 

[Costock_Fox]

1 hour ago, Jattdogg said:

Im out.

Your loss.

[onekeithweller]

Song for Matt Hancock

Confidence is one thing, but you took it too far; did someone tell you you were the Corona Czar?

Although our future is bright, I won't forget about last night.

Once upon a time I had faith in the guy but now it's time for him to depart.

What else can I say?

He was totally shit from the start.

Totally shit from the start.

*With apologies to Dave Henson.

Edited 30 June 2020 by onekeithweller
Spelling

[Vardinio'sCat]

5 hours ago, Paninistickers said:

A heartfelt thanks to sections of the Asian community. 

 

That's a bit uncalled for. Factors like social deprivation, prevelance of multi-generational households, overall housing density and the nature of the work done by different communities (eg minorities being over-represented in the NHS) are all things that can contribute to infection rates which do not involve impugning whole communities, when the info is still sketchy.

 

A thing that cropped up yesterday on the most excellent Dr John Campbell's Youtube Corona reports is the fact that both Pakistan and India do have big problems now, and are exporting some cases to us. There was references to cases of folks coming off the planes and going straight to hospital, which isn't good news, and those flights are allowed by our borderline delusional government. The section on India and Pakistan starts at about 11m 20s and the bit about flights from pakistan is in the UK bit following, at 25m 38s. Basically, half of Britain's imported cases from Pakistan, 65'000 people coming in since March 1st, 2 flights a day, 30 cases since 4th June, some cases straight from plane to hospital, Leicester specifically mentioned.

 

 

Dr John is a top man, and a bit of a lockdown superstar, but anyway, the situation is tough for the city, let's leave the finger pointing til we get all the facts.

 

Edited 30 June 2020 by Vardinio'sCat

[Vardinio'sCat]

5 hours ago, Paninistickers said:

There undoubtedly morons in all communities. But the postcode stats don't lie and nor do my own eyes from what I've seen of my neighbours and my parents neighbours.

 

There are vast sections of the Asian community that have totally ignored social distancing and social bubbles since day 1. Rules are for other people in many people's eyes. 

 

You have actually witnessed this yourself, or do you have a reference for that.

[Vardinio'sCat]

5 hours ago, Russell sprout said:

Isn’t oadby LE18?

i work in Wigston and have only been in my job for a month so won’t be entitled to furlough either

 

Ouch, that sounds expensive. My sympathies, you have every right to be angry, even if some of us clearly diverge on who is to blame.

[Vardinio'sCat]

5 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

There's a lot of truth to that - as you say the stats don't lie. I've seen a lot of this sort of thing go on in London with several other communities too such as Turkish, Kurdish, Polish, etc. But what I would say is that a much better job of communication and enforcement could have been done. There are a lot of people in these communities that speak little to no English (another issue in itself, but I digress). In times like this prejudice has to be put aside and we need to help each other out, and here in London I've seen zero attempt from government or healthcare officials to get the message across to such communities. There are a few bus stop adverts translated into 20 languages but I mean genuinely reaching out to community leaders and forcing the message across.

 

You've got to remember that similar things have happened in other countries too, e.g. a French Catholic priest ended up having over 300 of his parishers get the virus because he refused to cancel Sunday service. This sort of thing sounds mental to me, but people of faith live their lives based around their place of worship so this sort of outbreak was obvious. Here in London, Brent / Neasden has some of the most cases in the capital for similar reasons. It was all too predictable.

Anyway once again I hope everyone stays safe and also don't feel bad for "grassing up" people you see flouting the rules. Everyone needs to work together to get through this. 

 

It has been noted already some of the information leaflets were only in English. In Leicester that is borderline criminal, imho.

[Vardinio'sCat]

5 hours ago, orangecity23 said:

So Soulsby's spent all day doing media interviews telling people the stats aren't bad, and we don't need a lockdown and it won't help, and now the lockdown's extended, what is the chance people are going to obey it when the dear leader has told everyone here that is unnecessary? Cummings should absolutely have gone, but Soulsby's has been massively irresponsible today. He's shown appallingly bad leadership today. He should go.

 

By the time he got to Newsnight, he had changed his tune. It was almost as if he had finally seen all the evidence, but that is just an opinion, of course.

 

No10 is such a shambles that it is going to be very difficult to pin this all on Soulsby, for all his limitations.

[Vardinio'sCat]

 

When the horror show that will be the public inquiry comes, we will take a keen interest in the glacial speed of the government on this. Our response to coronavirus has been an absolute shambles from start to finish. World-beating my arse.

 

 

Note to the human race, populists are absolutely rubbish at decent government, and may get you killed.

Edited 30 June 2020 by Vardinio'sCat

[chuck'em]

4 hours ago, TeamRocket said:

To be honest I find this whole thing odd. I live in the north west (Bolton) and seen a lot of people out and about like life is normal but not seen any places where people are getting tested not sure if that's cos I have been only going out to do my 2 week shopping or what but also not read about any test centres in the news about the north west 🤔

I live near Rochdale and I know there's a walk in one in the town centre. The main one for the area is a big drive through next to the Etihad. 

[hejammy]

6 hours ago, UniFox21 said:

Pretty much, sadly someone else suffers from their complete lack of a brain, yet if they were to get ill the blame is passed and they carry on.

 

People gathering when they shouldn't, outbreaks in factories, Eid celebrations, BLM protests and various other factors.

Any excuse to bring in some casual racism eh 

[Kisnorbo fox]

Surely cases can’t be high in these apparent Asian areas such as Evington and spinney hills like the news would suggest ? I thought Leicester was multi-cultural and we all lived amongst each other with all different colours and creeds standing hand in hand around the clock tower singing kumbaya ? Or is Covid-19 now racist as it seems to be infecting a higher number of Asian people ?

 

[hejammy]

I think the point is that  no one will argue that the highest rates are those in the areas where minorities primarily reside and that's not being racist. Saying its because of eid celebrations (which incidentally were over a month ago and also Leicester is not even in the top 10 cities with Muslim population of the UK) and due to BLM marches (where there were far bigger marches elsewhere in the county) has no foundation or evidence and has been said to cause divide - makes it racist (or at the very least ignorant) 

 

Perhaps its more to do with the socio-economic demographic. Generally there are more people living in one household in these areas, they are more cramped, there are people living much closer to one another in lines of terraced housing, education is lower in these areas, the demographic in these areas tend to go to the same places as most others in that area for shopping for essentials etc. We know this virus spreads very easily. 

Edited 30 June 2020 by hejammy

[st albans fox]

Kent is a county of 1.6 million 

 

there is no indication that the whole county of leics is being restricted.  You can’t compare the city of Leicester and the county of Kent re case counts - the risk of the outbreak spreading quickly in a city is way higher than across a county. 

 

the argument about more testing = more cases is of course true on a basic level but they don’t just look at absolute numbers, they look at percentages. 
 

Let’s say you had 10 cases and had made 1000 tests

 

now you increase the testing to 10,000 (you would now expect approx 100 cases).   If the number of cases is notably higher than 100 then you have a possible problem that needs more investigation. 
 

is there any evidence that people with no symptoms are being tested ?? that would be the only issue with my argument  as in the 1000 tests, no asymptomatic cases would’ve be likely to be found because only those with symptoms were being tested.   

 

 

[st albans fox]

4 minutes ago, hejammy said:

I think the point is that  no one will argue that the highest rates are those in the areas where minorities primarily reside and that's not being racist. Saying its because of eid celebrations (which incidentally were over a month ago and also Leicester is not even in the top 10 cities with Muslim population of the UK) and due to BLM marches (where there were far bigger marches elsewhere in the county) has no foundation or evidence and has been said to cause divide - which makes it racist (or at the very least ignorant) 

 

Perhaps its more to do with the socio-economic demographic. Generally there are more people living in one household in these areas, they are more cramped, there are people living much closer to one another in lines of terraced housing, education is lower in these areas, the demographic in these areas tend to go to the same places as most others in that area for shopping for essentials etc. We know this virus spreads very easily. 

Generally agree 

 

although there are plenty of other areas in the uk with similar demographic and urban arrangement 

I wonder if the small garment manufacturing factory units prevalent in that part of the city are the cause, especially as over the past month, production will have begun increasing as shops have opened and some extra demand established ..... I would have thought social distancing in some of these units is nigh on impossible and the nature of the production process means fabric is cut, handled and passed on to some one else to process further Etc etc ....... whilst the virus does not live for too long on fabric, that’s a fair risk ! 

 

[hejammy]

5 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Generally agree 

 

although there are plenty of other areas in the uk with similar demographic and urban arrangement 

I wonder if the small garment manufacturing factory units prevalent in that part of the city are the cause, especially as over the past month, production will have begun increasing as shops have opened and some extra demand established ..... I would have thought social distancing in some of these units is nigh on impossible and the nature of the production process means fabric is cut, handled and passed on to some one else to process further Etc etc ....... whilst the virus does not live for too long on fabric, that’s a fair risk ! 

 

Yes it could be a factor and yes I agree that there are lots of other cities with demographics similar to what I described, but it could also come down to being unlucky, that we know how easily this spreads and perhaps a few families from that region got it and it just spread due to the reasons mentioned before. Whereas other cities have been "lucky". It could be a multitude of factors compounded to give us this situation to be fair. 

[stix]

28 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Kent is a county of 1.6 million 

 

there is no indication that the whole county of leics is being restricted.  You can’t compare the city of Leicester and the county of Kent re case counts - the risk of the outbreak spreading quickly in a city is way higher than across a county. 

 

the argument about more testing = more cases is of course true on a basic level but they don’t just look at absolute numbers, they look at percentages. 
 

Let’s say you had 10 cases and had made 1000 tests

 

now you increase the testing to 10,000 (you would now expect approx 100 cases).   If the number of cases is notably higher than 100 then you have a possible problem that needs more investigation. 
 

is there any evidence that people with no symptoms are being tested ?? that would be the only issue with my argument  as in the 1000 tests, no asymptomatic cases would’ve be likely to be found because only those with symptoms were being tested.   

 

 

I’m not sure if it’s really evidence, but my wife received a letter around 5 days ago asking if she would volunteer to take a test from the NHS, without any symptoms or underlying health conditions. Test arrived yesterday.